What separates Maxwell Jacob Friedman from other wrestlers today?
It might sound Corny to some, but Jim Cornette has his theory.
The host of the Jim Cornette Experience sounded off on exactly this subject during a recent episode of his podcast. Featured below are some of the highlights.
On MJF not being similar to "Stone Cold" Steve Austin in 1997: “That was completely different than MJF, who is pretty thoroughly in every aspect a heel, unlikeable, untrustworthy, will use other people to fight his battles, will jump somebody from behind, take advantage of someone, will back off from a face-to-face confrontation. He will verbally annihilate somebody when the opportunity is there but then show fear and or trepidation if they’re in front of him. The reason why everybody is cheering MJF now has nothing to do with the reasons they started cheering Steve Austin then.”
On how there is currently a lack of entertaining wrestlers, and MJF fills that void for many fans in today’s wrestling: “He’s the only one working anymore. He makes you want to see s*** and then takes it away from you until the last minute. He doesn’t just bump for the sake of bumping for everybody. Because he knows that first he has to piss the people off so they will want to see him have his comeuppance. So he’s got a mind, he’s got a mouth, and he’s got a physique that he knows how to use in the ring. He’s ahead of 90% of the other people in the business and he’s more entertaining than almost all of them.”
On his belief that MJF is one of the only wrestlers today that knows how to cut a promo and work in the ring: “It’s all the same except for guys like MJF. The reason why all that other s*** used to get over in the territory days (Death Match) is that it was different and unusual. Everybody else was wrestlers that knew how to talk and work. Now he’s one of the only ones of those left. MJF’s out there running a business, so they like him.”
Check out the complete episode of the Jim Cornette Experience podcast by visiting Omny.fm. H/T to SEScoops.com for transcribing the above quotes.
